The School of the Tosafists and Rabbeinu Tam
Rashi's grandsons and their students create a new way of learning Talmud: setting distant passages against one another and resolving the contradiction.
Once Rashi's commentary made the Talmud intelligible, it became clear that the text was full of internal contradictions: what is said in one tractate conflicts with another. Rashi's descendants turned this into a method.
Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir, his grandson, known as Rabbeinu Tam (4860–4931), lived in Ramerupt and Troyes. He had a fearless mind: he disputed his grandfather, his brother the Rashbam, and the Rif, and his Sefer HaYashar is full of blunt refutations. In 4907, during the Second Crusade, knights attacked him in Ramerupt, inflicting five wounds 'for the five wounds of Jesus'; a passing nobleman saved him. He convened the first Ashkenazi rabbinic synod at Troyes, which enacted ordinances binding on the French communities.
The Tosafist method takes a line of Gemara, produces a contradictory passage from elsewhere, and resolves it, often with a fine distinction: here one case, there another. It is not a commentary but a living argument recorded by students. The Tosafot are printed on the outer margin of every Talmud page, facing Rashi, so the page reads as a conversation across three generations of one family.
Rabbeinu Tam's dispute with Rashi over the order of the passages in tefillin was never settled; many still don a second pair, 'Rabbeinu Tam's tefillin.'
How we know
Sources
Rishonim
- Tosafot, Kiddushin 41a — a model of the method and of its humanity: on a daughter’s consent
- Menachot 34b and Tosafot there — the dispute of Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam over the order of the tefillin passages
- Sefer HaYashar (Rabbeinu Tam) — Rabbeinu Tam’s own novellae and responsa
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 34 — the practical outcome: “Rabbeinu Tam tefillin”
Basis: tradition.
People and places
Rabbeinu Gershom · Rashi · Rabbeinu Tam · Avraham ibn Ezra · Troyes · Rishonim · Rivan—Rabbi Yehuda ben Natan · Ri haZaken—Rabbeinu Yitzchak of Dampierre · Rash of Sens—Rabbi Shimshon · Baal haTerumah—Rabbi Baruch ben Yitzchak · Or Zarua—Rabbi Yitzchak of Vienna · The Tosafists · Rashbam · Rabbi Meir ben Samuel of Ramerupt · Rivam—Rabbi Isaac ben Meir · Raaban—Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan of Mainz · Rabbi Eliezer of Metz · Rabbi Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi · Rabbi Avigdor ha-Kohen of Vienna · Rabbi Baruch ben Shmuel of Mainz · Rabbi Yosef Bechor Shor of Orléans · Rabbi Ephraim ben Yitzchak of Regensburg · Ritzva—Rabbi Yitzchak ben Avraham of Dampierre · Riva—Rabbi Yitzchak ben Asher ha-Levi of Speyer · Rabbi Simcha ben Shmuel of Speyer · Rabbi Yoel ha-Levi of Bonn